Various proposals have attempted to address the space debris problem. See published U.S. Patent Application Nos. 2012/0286098; 2012/0286100; and 2012/0175466 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,540 all incorporated herein by this reference. In U.S. Pat. No. 7,207,525, incorporated herein by this reference, a free-flying grasper unit is tethered to an orbital platform (e.g., a satellite) and used to grasp a target object. The grasper unit includes cameras which transmit images back to a ground control station with a human operator. The human operator then transmits control commands to the grasper unit via the orbital platform.
Problems with such a proposal include the fact that communication delays and/or interruptions between the ground control station and the orbital platform might result in a grasper unit failing to grasp a target object and/or striking the target object damaging it and/or its components, possibly causing additional space debris, or damaging the grasper unit and/or the orbital platform. If the object to be grasped is an expensive satellite, the satellite could be damaged.